Ross Cameron

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Ross Alexander Cameron (born 14 May 1965), Australian politician, was a Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives from March 1996 to October 2004, representing the Division of Parramatta, New South Wales. The son of Jim Cameron, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, he was born in Sydney, New South Wales, and was educated at Sydney University. He was a lawyer before entering politics. He was policy adviser and research officer to the New South Wales Minister for Transport, Bruce Baird, and an intern to United States Republican Senator Mark Hatfield.

Cameron was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Family and Community Services 2001-03 and Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer (Peter Costello) 2003-04.

Cameron is a strong conservative and argued that Christian family values should be the basis of social policy. He was a founding member of the conservative Parliamentary Christian Fellowship group, which draws membership from parliamentarians across the political spectrum.

He became known for making strong, attacking comments, something which is uncommon amongst backbenchers who usually seek to quietly rise up the ranks. In 2004, he declared that Osama bin Laden was "stroking his beard ... celebrating the advent of Mark Latham", referring to the then Opposition leader's intention to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.

In August 2004, Cameron revealed in an interview in Good Weekend that he had had an extramarital affair while his wife was pregnant. Cameron said he had told his wife about the infidelity, because he was tired of "this sense of living with your own hypocrisy." [John Ryan] commented in "The World of Today" that "his infidelity is not unusual in terms of the human race generally, and certainly not within political circles, it's not that unusual. What is unusual is that he's been open, he's confessed it, and he regards it as a benchmark from which he wants to move on and do better" [1].

At the 2004 Federal election Cameron lost his seat to Labor's Julie Owens.

As of October 2005, Cameron is employed by Macquarie Bank.

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